I'm wondering if anybody will be able to help me with some advice please?

I'm a journalism graduate who, after a long time either not working or doing bits and bats of freelancing, has recently managed to get a half decent full time contracted job. I'm earning enough money to pay off my overdraft that I accrued and I'm finally beginning to save surplus cash too.

I'm planning on, when I have enough money saved up, going to South Korea and at least initially would like to teach English. I have a small amount of informal experience in this field as I currently do a weekly language exchange with a Korean lady I know.

My problem is I'm not fully certain what I should do regarding a TEFL or similair qualification.I would not be able to get 4 weeks off of work to do this and I'm not certain it would be a good idea to quit my job - even when I have saved a fair amount of money - to then do a course like this with no guaranteed job at the end of it.

Are there any courses you could recomend where I would be able to do the bulk of the theory at home or on weekends?I imagine I can take off up to two weeks from my job so I would be able to do any observed teaching, etc in this period.

My problem seems to be that all the courses I have seen are either 4 weeks and not very flexible or the "intense" ones (2 days or so) do not look like they'd consitute a great qualification and I do not believe I would learn enough from them to do my potential future students justice.